Last year Allyson Hobbs taught a one-unit interdisciplinary undergraduate course “Hamilton: An American Musical” that explored why Alexander Hamilton and the contemporary musical based on his life resonate so profoundly with the American public.

ROBIN WANDER | February 21, 2019

Hamilton is one the most popular and most celebrated musicals in American history. It has essentially redefined the American musical by drawing on the language and rhythms of hip-hop and R & B, genres that are underrepresented in the musical theater tradition. Last year Allyson Hobbs, associate professor of history in the School of the…

New Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning (VAF) brings international artists into Stanford classrooms across campus.

ROBIN WANDER | February 20, 2019

The Office of the Vice President for the Arts at Stanford University announces the first two artists in the new Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning (VAF). The program brings international artists into Stanford classrooms in order to provide a stimulus in artistic thinking and aesthetic perspectives to disciplines across the university.…

In Music 1A: Music, Mind, and Human Behavior, students have the opportunity to explore music as a core aspect of human existence through the lenses of cognitive science, culture and anthropology. (Read the full article in the Stanford Daily.)

Science and art are often regarded as distinct – either a person can’t be serious about both or an interest in one must relate somehow to work in the other. In reality, many scientists participate in and produce art at all levels and in every medium. Here are just a few of these people –…

Written as a photo comic book, Ge Wang’s publication charts new ethical and aesthetic territory.

ROBIN WANDER | December 19, 2018

Stanford scholar Ge Wang has chosen an unconventional medium for a manifesto about why technology and design needs to reflect human values: a comic book. “It’s nerdy. It’s philosophical. It’s a core dump of my brain in comic form,” said Wang, an associate professor of music in the School of Humanities and Science, who has…

Amir Eshel teaches that art is a way to react to life’s most challenging circumstances.

ROBIN WANDER | October 31, 2018

When poet and Stanford Professor Amir Eshel saw a series of drawings in the studio of German artist Gerhard Richter, he had an experience many would describe as spiritual. Eshel was in Cologne, Germany to interview Richter for his forthcoming book Poetic Thinking Today (Stanford University Press, 2019). He wanted to learn more about the artist’s four-part…

Science informs art and vice versa in this class that aims to encourage students to look at art – and materials found elsewhere – with fresh eyes.

TAYLOR KUBOTA | October 4, 2018

If you walked the first floor of the Shriram Center for Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University in early September, you may have peered in on a lab full of students, decked out in lab coats, gloves, face masks and goggles. This would be no unusual sight in a chemistry lab, save for what the students…

The 17-foot bronze sculpture is by Ursula von Rydingsvard, who will visit campus next month for a formal dedication of the artwork and to speak with students.

ARI CHASNOFF | September 17, 2018

When the inaugural cohort of Knight-Hennessy Scholars arrive to Stanford, they will be greeted by a new sculpture in front of Denning House, their program’s new home. The sculpture, MOCNA, by Ursula von Rydingsvard, was commissioned as the first piece in Denning House’s art collection, which plans to acquire one piece every year from emerging and established…

A new exhibition at the Hoover Institution highlights Overseas Weekly, a civilian-run, women-led newspaper for American GIs abroad that defied top military brass and defended freedom of the press during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

MELISSA DE WITTE | August 23, 2018

For the past 40 years, a Stanford alumna’s journalistic legacy from the Korean and Vietnam wars has sat forgotten in musty boxes in a basement in Sweden. Overseeing Overseas Weekly’s Pacific edition was Ann Bryan, the only female editor in chief in Saigon. She successfully sued the Department of Defense to lift a ban that prohibited…

Projects in The Senior Reflection mix science with art. They have included documentaries, sculptures and performances and expressed students’ views on nature, health and personal experiences.

TAYLOR KUBOTA | May 31, 2018

Nibbling on petite samplings of quail, students in The Senior Reflection excitedly consider the acorn porridge and debate about the level of detail the chef – their classmate Alex Nguyen-Phuc, ’18 – should include in a printed menu to accompany the final meal. Although the class has taken on a temporary air of fine dining, it is…

Installed in front of the Anderson Collection, Nebulate‘s structure is comprised of plastic bubbles of varying sizes, assembled to form a translucent, cloud-like mass. Architectural Design Program students explored how surface deformation, through dimpling and curvature, increased the strength of the panel. The final form embodies a viral mass upon its environment as it ebbs and…

Max Korman believes that new augmented reality platforms represent a paradigm shift in how people will tell stories and create art in the future.

ROBIN WANDER | May 10, 2018

Stanford undergraduates Max Korman, ’18, and Khoi Le, ’20, launched what may be the world’s first augmented reality narrative film. And they did it using their mobile phones. Snowbird is a 3D-animated short movie about porcelain creatures that come to life in a snow globe. (Image credit: Courtesy of Max Korman) Augmented reality (AR) is a…

Richard Diebenkorn's 'Window' is the centerpiece of a new interactive exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center. The exhibit reveals hidden images beneath the painting found by Stanford student Katherine Van Kirk.

SANDRA FEDER | April 17, 2018

Stanford student Katherine Van Kirk, ’19, has paired modern technology with old-fashioned detective work to reveal images hidden beneath the surface of artist Richard Diebenkorn’s painting Window (1967). Van Kirk discovered multiple compositions hidden below Window’s surface that date to the mid-1950s and ‘60s, when Diebenkorn was a leader of the Bay Area Figurative movement. These earlier compositions…

Eight-foot-tall mosaic monsters lay on top of the complete text of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel about the unintended consequences of heedless scientific ambition.

KRIS NEWBY | April 5, 2018

Third-year medical student Nick Love, PhD, combined his passion for art, literature and medicine in creating an art exhibit at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge that commemorates the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. While the fictional Dr. Frankenstein stitched his monster together from cadaver parts, Love built his monsters with plastic,…

The group’s first art exhibition reflects knowledge-gathering and knowledge-making that are hallmarks of the university.

ROBIN WANDER | March 15, 2018

When two students saw more division than unity between the different academic disciplines on Stanford’s campus, they decided to build a community and call it ArtX. Katherine Yang is the co-founder of the ArtX student organization. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero) Launched in 2017 by Stanford students Ramin Ahmari, BS ’18 and MS ’18, and Katherine Yang,…

Part of Stanford's celebration of Frankenstein@200, the fifth LAST Festival brings together artists and scientists for two days of exhibitions and talks that ponder the growing intersections of man and machine.

ANGELA ANDERSON | March 2, 2018

In the sculpture Feast of Eternity, salt crystals form delicate patterns along a 3D printed lattice that mimics the growth of stem cells to create bone. The hauntingly beautiful object resembling a human skull was designed by bioartist Amy Karle with the idea of “healing and enhancing a future body.” Karle uses medical technologies in…